“How much time do we have?”
“She’s sleeping now, but I need to be back with her in less than an hour.”
“Less than an hour!”
Venetia opened her eyes, smiling at his horror, then, resting her head on her hands, she watched, fascinated and excited in equal measure, as he slid to the floor and began to unbutton the fall front of his buckskin breeches after removing his boots.
His movements were now hurried, his expression intense, as he came toward her so he could divest her of her outer layers of clothing.
She felt no shyness. It was just as it had been before: urgent, exciting, and sincere. And when she was beneath him, her dress laid safely over a chair, her petticoats rucked up and her breasts partly exposed, she felt only the deepest excitement as he took one nipple into his mouth and his hands gently stroked her bare skin.
“You’re even more beautiful than when I last saw you,” he murmured, trailing featherlight kisses along her jawline before tantalizing her with his tongue once more.
Completely naked, he cut an even finer figure than she’d remembered, though she didn’t say it. Sebastian had grown into a man; his shoulder width and chiseled jaw proclaiming the strength he was still developing when they’d been young and in love—both of them so hopeful but fearful, too. As they’d had every reason to be.
“I love you, Venetia.” He paused, his eyes pools of warmth and desire.
“And I love you, Sebastian.” She raised her hands to cup his face.
“Forever?” he asked. And then he was trailing those dangerous, tantalizing kisses down her belly until he reached the juncture of her thighs where she was already so wet and willing. And where she almost dissolved into a puddle of need as he swept his long, clever tongue the length of her cleft.
“Forever!” she gasped, laughing her pleasure as he primed her for what was to come, his probing fingers and sensitive tongue sending her into a maelstrom of shivering desire.
This is what her body had been crying out for since the moment he’d kissed her against the wall two nights earlier.
“You liked that? Do you want me to continue?” His face loomed above hers once more; his mouth quirked in an expression of both amusement and longing. “Please say you do.”
Venetia shuddered with an intensity of desire so great she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“Yes! I want you to come inside me,” she whispered on a half groan as she felt the tip of his shaft nudge between her legs. She did not care about the risks, for he was going to marry her.
At last, they were going to be together.
The warmth and strength of his young, steely body pressing down upon her unleashed the longing within her. Venetia’s first sexual encounter with Sebastian had revealed an earthiness and enjoyment of the act that had surprised her. For so many years, she’d had to subsume that side of her character.
Now, the tenderness of his touch, as he cupped her cheek, entering her slowly—with infinite care and gentleness—rekindled the past like a flame to a hayrick.
Enough of restraint. Enough of denying the past and pretending to be someone she was not.
She gripped him tightly, her legs about his waist as she arched into him, desire nearly overtaking her as he moved above her.
“I love you!” he cried as he thrust deeper, withdrawing before plunging in once more. Now his passionate gasps echoed hers as, together, they spiraled toward the brink.
“Oh yes!” he burst out as he came, withdrawing at the last moment to spill his seed on the bedclothes beside her, closing his eyes upon a rapturous smile as he groaned, collapsing on top of her before rolling to one side.
For a long time they lay like this; Venetia conscious of his soft breathing, and also the gentle stroking of her breast.
Finally, he spoke. “I never thought I could be happy again.”
She rested her cheek against his chest. She’d have to go soon, but she wanted to revel in the closeness, to feel the beating of his heart, for as long as she could.
“But now we can be,” she whispered.
Sebastian had reawakened the dormant thrill of living that had been subdued for so long she’d forgotten what it felt like to have hope in the future.
But, there it was, shining like a beacon of light in the sky.
Yet entirely within reach.
Chapter 9
Sebastian waited a good ten minutes after Venetia’s departure before leaving the folly to head back through the woods toward Quamby House.
His heart was pumping, not just from the excitement occasioned by such wonderful, clandestine activities, but also from concern at possibly compromising Venetia's reputation in the eyes of anyone else.
He glanced about him, relieved to see he was alone.
Yes, she was going to be his bride, but he wanted her to walk down the aisle of the church with her head held high and not a whiff of scandal attached to her good name. As she deserved. Venetia was the purest, sweetest, most divine creature he'd had the good fortune to meet during his long years of hoping happiness really would become a state of normality—not something to be remembered wistfully from the few glorious weeks he'd spent with the darling girl before his marriage.
"Mr Wells? Oh, it is you."
It was Lady Quamby, standing in the shadow of an enormous elm tree, stroking the gray fox pelt about her shoulders and assessing him with far too much interested curiosity than made him comfortable.
"Lady Quamby." He stopped to bow, glancing down quickly to ensure the buttons of his fall front were done up correctly.
They were. So he rose and said with all the charm of which he was capable, "You are looking very fine today, ma'am, despite the onerous responsibilities that must accompany such a grand event as the Christmas Ball. I’m told there will be more than sixty guests."
"I'm used to organizing far bigger and more complicated entertainments than that, Mr Wells," she said with a wave of her hand. "Though I do confess this has its singular challenges."
"Indeed?"
"A couple of late additions to the invitation list that I had not counted upon." She sighed but, he noted, looked even more closely at him as she added, "And upon whose specified absence I had received the assent of others."
"Really?" Sebastian wasn't particularly interested in the minutiae as long as it didn't pertain to his sister or his beloved. Unfortunately, Lady Quamby's next words filled him with concern.
"Yes, your father is one of them."
"My father!" he said with more energy than he should have. His first thought was of Libby, whose last letter had outlined her bold plan in having her beloved Mr Clayton introduced to the company by Lord Quamby as the man she intended to wed. It was a big step for a timid girl who’d spent nearly seven years waiting to be granted approval by her father to marry a man he deemed unworthy of her.
Yet, from Sebastian’s own perspective, his father was not a welcome addition to the guest list. The old man had taken a dim view of Sebastian’s interest in Venetia all those years ago. And although Sebastian was his own master, and in full receipt of a comfortable inheritance, he knew that his father’s displeasure at learning that Sebastian intended to marry 'down' as he'd once termed such a marriage to Venetia, was hardly likely to have softened.